


It Goes Like This

by girl_aflame



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 08:02:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1680821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_aflame/pseuds/girl_aflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's got one shot to wow Plutarch Heavensbee, Nashville music mogul -- hot young country star Peeta Mellark be damned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Goes Like This

**3:05**

They’ve been standing outside of the port-a-potties for five minutes, which is exactly four minutes and thirty seconds longer than she was willing to wait.

“Is that her?” Madge asks for the umpteenth time, standing on her toes.

Katniss refreshes her email (again) and reads the description (again), mentally berating herself (again) for relying on strangers from Craigslist. “We don’t know if it’s a her,” she says (again). “It says, ‘Friends bailed, got tix, see you by the toilets.’”

“Then why’d you say so?”

“She used ‘lol.’ I don’t know. Seems kind of girly.”

“You know what’s girly?” Gale’s eyes haven’t moved from the group of bikini-topped girls bouncing in and out of a tarp filled with water in the back of someone’s pick-up truck. “Redneck hot tub!” one of them screeches.

Not a bad idea, honestly. It’s a deep-blue-sky, scorching-sun kind of afternoon with the only promise of relief coming at nightfall. Sweat runs down Katniss’s already too-exposed torso. 

“What, Gale? Tits?” Katniss says dryly, which is enough to shock Gale into looking at her.

“Katniss!” Madge exclaims, then burps, then starts giggling hysterically. Half a Mike’s Hard Lemonade will do that to the girl.

This is the last time she’s asking anyone to come with her anywhere.

…

Panem’s Let Freedom Ring! Fest is by far the largest event of the summer. Of the year, really, drawing thousands of drunken fans to tailgate, run around half-naked, and listen to country music in the county fairgrounds (pardon, outdoor stadium). Always, someone sets off fireworks when the sun goes down and as the fire marshal scurries around, the cheers only grow louder. 

How many fucks does Katniss give about country music? Negative five.

It’s all thanks to Haymitch Abernathy.

Back in sophomore year of high school and one verse into her first guitar lesson with Haymitch, the old man had held up his hand. “Look, I’m going to shoot it straight,” he’d said.

Great. She’d tucked the guitar onto her lap, holding it close the way Prim clung to their damn barn cat whenever Katniss threatened to toss the beast back into the wild. 

The wood was still cool as her fingers skimmed over it. She’d steeled herself for rejection: no good, total amateur, too poor, too homely.

“You’re the real deal.” Not a smile. Almost a scowl. That’s how she’d known he meant it. “You write, you sing, and you’re not half-bad on the guitar. But if you want to make it around here, none of this garage-band garbage. You’re going to have to go country.”

“But I hate country.”

“I didn’t say you have to like it,” Haymitch had said. “But you show up at the Blue Collar Bar and play that indie rock crap, they’re going to tar and feather you. Let’s get this show on the road, sweetheart, I’ve got a happy hour to get to.”

…

That first lesson was five years ago. When she was sixteen, she figured her career would have long taken off by the time she was twenty-one.

Ha.

**3:10**

As with all things, it starts with a shirtless bro.

“U-S-A!” a guy in a red, white, and blue bandanna yells, thumping his chest. The chant catches on instantly. The entire parking lot becomes one voice, bellowing each letter in unison. Madge lifts up Gale’s hand like he’s a prizefighter, announces that this man is a vet, and they’re immediately surrounded by high-fives and claps on the back. 

God, her head hurts already. 

It’s not that Katniss isn’t proud of Gale – she is, though the hollow spaces in his eyes from when he returned from the desert still haven’t filled, and she doesn’t know the right words to do so. But she’s never been one for crowds and the shirtless, sweaty bodies pressing closer make her want to sneak back into the loft of her father’s barn and sing herself to sleep, the way she used to on hot afternoons. 

“Spare me the pseudo-patriotism,” calls out a girl with a buzz cut and long skirt scraping against the parking lot. Never mind that it’s sizzling out.

Somehow, over the sound of hands slapping against his shoulders, Gale turns. 

Uh-oh.

“What did you say?” He’s got the polite “yes sir” voice, but his eyes are thunder. 

The girl sashays closer, brown eyes staring down Gale without a hint of intimidation. “How about we get a chant going for all of the innocents killed by U.S. drones? Governmental puppets propped up in third world countries?”

“Shit,” Madge mutters, gripping Katniss’s arm. 

“How about,” says Gale, each word measured and heavy as a drum, “we talk about the fact that thanks to people like me, you have the right to run your mouth?”

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you were one of the original framers of the Bill of Rights. You’re remarkably well-preserved.” The girl pivots toward Katniss and Madge, arms outstretched as if to say, “Back me up here.”

“Jojo, I see we’re making friends.” A bronze-haired, green-eyed god appears out of nowhere, wrapping his arm around the girl. Madge swears audibly, making the god break out a deep-dimpled smile. 

His appearance doesn’t interrupt the stares between Gale and the girl. Nary a blink. 

To Katniss, that arm suddenly looks a hell of a lot like a restraint. 

“Which one of you is the darling who’s looking to buy tickets?” the god says.

Madge’s elbow drives deep into Katniss’s side. “Oh, my God, Katniss, you said he was a girl! Look at him!”

“I see,” Katniss says evenly.

“Finnick Odair. Pleasure to meet you both.” He winks at them each in turn. “Three tickets, face value?”

As Katniss fumbles in her wristlet for the crumpled-up bills (she’d pulled extra shifts at Sae’s Diner to cover the cost for Madge and Gale), Gale says, “You know what, Kat, I don’t know that I’m really feeling up for this.”

Inhale. Exhale. 

She _needs_ someone else in there besides already-past-buzzed Madge. Someone who will give her the push to talk to Haymitch’s guy, Heavensbee. Find him in the steadily thickening crowd, weaving around bare legs and cowboy boots. Gale’s the details guy, working best when he’s on a mission—

“C’mon, brother!” Finnick claps Gale on the shoulder. “Let’s get a beer in you. On me.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Jojo adds, her brown eyes wide and innocent now. 

“I wouldn’t dare.” The words are light but Gale’s stare is hard. 

“Okay, this has been great,” Katniss says a little too loudly. “Thanks for the tickets—”

Oblivious to the fact that “Jojo” looks like she’s ready to bite Gale’s nuts off if he says another word, Finnick takes this opportunity to shoot the breeze. “You know the headliner bailed, right?” he says. “Twitter’s up in arms.”

“What?” Madge’s voice trembles. No more Mike’s Hard for her. Ever. “But I love Cato and Cash.”

“Madge, God,” Katniss can’t help but interject. “Cato and Cash are everything that’s wrong with country music.”

Jojo nods emphatically, her skirt bobbing with her.

“Kat, you have no sense of fun. ‘Tight Jeans and Bikini Skin’? That’s, like, my summer anthem.” Madge hiccups. 

“Love that one,” Finnick agrees. “Really hits home.”

“But it’s meaningless!” Katniss’s voice rises just a bit too loudly and a group of girls eye her over their bedazzled sunglasses. Their flip-flops thwack against the pavement, carefree and confident the way she wishes she could be. The way she feels behind her guitar but not without it. “Butts, booze, and blondes. That’s it.”

“All of my favorite things,” Finnick says jovially, making Madge break out into a grin. “Apparently they got food poisoning this morning. As per the ‘Free Cash’ hashtag, there’s gonna be a replacement act.”

Madge’s blue eyes narrow. Maybe she’s not as drunk as Katniss thought. “The hottest guys that Panem has ever seen are sick—“

“Hey, now,” Finnick says.

“—And some amateur is gonna get up there and cover ‘Friends in Low Places.’ Why are we here?” she says. 

“Yeah, Katniss,” Gale says with the same petulant look on his face that he had when they were kids and Katniss had beaten him in the race to the bus stop. 

“Yeah, Katniss,” Jojo mimics, because apparently the girl has a death wish.

Luckily, she’s saved by the bros: “It’s starting, yo!” one of them shouts, running by with a red Solo cup held over his head like a torch, and none of them can resist following. 

…

As kids, there was a direct correlation between how much Katniss wanted to keep a secret and how much Prim yearned to spill it. It therefore followed that as Katniss had tried to keep her entrance in Regional District 12 High School’s version of _American Idol_ a secret, Prim pinwheeled around the hallways, sharing the news with anyone who would listen. 

“You’re going to win, Katniss, I know it,” Prim said at the dinner table, bouncing up and down in her chair. 

“What’s this all about?” her mother asked, pushing the loaf of bread toward her.

Katniss looked directly across from her and met her father’s dark eyes and wide grin. He knew. Damn Haymitch. 

Her father was the one who sat out on the porch, strumming in cadence to the fireflies, his silhouette cut long and lean by the fading sun. He’d tugged tiny Katniss onto his lap and let her skinny fingers pluck at every chord in dissonance. As she grew taller and her fingers more sure, she’d play a song from the radio and he’d nod along, foot tapping against the sagging porch. 

Signing her up for lessons with Haymitch – surly, brusque, maybe just a little bit like her? Infinitesimally alike? – was her father’s way of telling her he believed in her. 

…

Making the first cut – one on one in Miss Trinket’s office – wasn’t so challenging. Round two in the band room, with Miss Trinket flanked by Dr. Snow, the creepy band teacher, and Ms. Coin, the perpetually dour orchestra teacher – she’d had to swallow hard for that one. Her guitar pick lingered above the strings just a beat too long, and Dr. Snow cocked one bushy white eyebrow. He was already sizing her up, finding her lacking. 

"Listen up, sweetheart," Haymitch had told her. "If you don’t sing like it’s from that place that keeps you up at night, tearing at your hair, then nobody’s gonna believe your shit." 

So she did.

And made it through to the finals. The top eight kids would perform in front of the entire student body, with the winner voted on by the audience. 

Prim was the one who couldn’t sleep the night before, sitting up in her bed to pepper Katniss with questions: “If you go first, do you think they’ll just end the competition right then and there? Or will they have to give everyone else a chance to act like it’s fair?”

“You’re getting way cart before horse here, Little Duck,” Katniss said as patiently as possible, ignoring the thrum of nerves in her stomach as she stared up at the sticker-star-studded ceiling. The constellations glowed a soft neon green. 

“You’re gonna win,” Prim said through a yawn. “I just know it.”

**4:32**

Eight-year-old Leevy Johnson, local YouTube sensation, warbles the national anthem. “Absolutely incredible!” Madge says over and over again, clapping so loudly that Katniss winces. 

“Anybody want funnel cake?” Finnick says, leaning over and briefly obscuring the throbbing sun. Damn, even the guy’s _sweat_ smells good. 

“Hell, yes!” Madge says. “Pour some sugar on me and all that jazz.” She giggles and places a hand on Finnick’s ample bicep to steady herself. 

Cool. Go ahead, leave her behind to play peacekeeper between Gale and Jojo. 

Gale stares straight ahead at the stage, neither applauding nor looking pained by the performance. Jojo rocks from side to side, probably contemplating her next divisive comment. 

Katniss taps out a quick email to Haymitch: _When and where should I meet Heavensbee?_ Her instructor doesn’t (or chooses not to) understand texting, but her phone pings promptly with an emailed reply:

_You’ll know him when you see him._

So helpful.

She resorts to a Google Images search of the guy, finding him on the red carpet at this year’s CMAs. Nothing distinctive reveals itself in the thumbnail image. Middle-aged, cowboy hat—

“Who’s that, your boyfriend?”

Katniss nearly drops the phone. “Jesus Christ.”

Jojo rolls her eyes. “Please, I’ve heard enough ‘God bless Americas’ to last a lifetime and the opener hasn’t even started yet.”

“So why are you here?” Katniss can’t help but ask.

The other girl shrugs, her tank top strap slipping down her freckled shoulder. “Finnick’s girlfriend just dumped him via Skype while she frolics around Barcelona. He’s a little tender right now, so I offered to be his wingman. Johanna Mason to the rescue, that’s my motto.”

“Oh, thank God for that,” Gale mutters. 

“So what’s your story?” Johanna says to Katniss.

“I don’t have one.”

“Really? Wasn’t the subject line of your email to Finnick, ‘Will offer up firstborn child for tickets’?”

Gale snorts. “Joke’s on him. She’s not having kids. She told everyone on the first day of health class in fifth grade.”

“Like she has to?” Johanna counters. “Like it’s her societal duty to be a walking incubator?”

How long does it take to buy a funnel cake?

**8:02**

Still hopped up on funnel cake sugar (that passed from Finnick’s hands to Madge’s to Katniss’s – not sanitary, but she was hungry) and experiencing a secondhand buzz from all of the sloshing cups around her, she figures that Let Freedom Ring! Fest is going about as well as it could. 

“Guys!” she calls over the sound of applause, holding out her phone. The previous act – Victorious, some kind of nonsensical country-rap group – has mercifully exited the stage. 

She’s set the image of Heavensbee with an arm around Luke Bryan as her lockscreen photo so that she doesn’t have to waste battery life by constantly going back onto the Internet. Creepy? Yes. Practical? Absolutely. “If you see this guy, let me know, okay?”

“Blind date?” Finnick waggles his eyebrows. 

How can she explain _last shot at trying to make this music thing a reality_ without going into her life story or, worse, sounding utterly pathetic?

…

When he came into the diner two days ago, Haymitch had eyed her with something that looked like concern but luckily didn’t resemble pity. “Everything going okay for you, sweetheart?”

Besides trying to make mortgage payments, ignoring her mother’s pleading phone calls to just give it up already and sell the house, and dealing with irate customers – “Peachy,” she’d answered. 

Haymitch took his time stirring his black coffee, never mind that there was nothing to dissolve. “I’ve got a contact at Let Freedom Ring! Fest,” he said finally. “Heavensbee. He’s the manager for a few of the acts. Everyone calls him the puppet master of Nashville.”

“Why’s that?” Her voice was calm, cool, absolutely nothing like the sudden mad dash of butterflies in her stomach. 

“If Plutarch wants to make something – or someone – happen, you can bet he’ll get his way. He’s a sly motherfucker, smart as hell, single-handedly launched ‘bro country’ with Cato and Cash.”

“Aren’t we blessed?”

Haymitch snorted but kept stirring. “I told him I had a girl for him to meet.”

Butterflies in her stomach? Try a tornado. 

“I’m a hack.” Her eyes followed the smudges on the Formica counter. “I can’t remember the last time I tuned my guitar.”

“Well, get to it.” Haymitch straightened up. “Remember what I told you, sweetheart. You’re the real deal. I know life’s dealt you a lot of shit, but if you want a shot at paying for that old farm, and maybe, I don’t know, getting the hell out of Panem, you’ll go to that concert, you’ll smile, and Heavensbee might just help you out.”

Paying for that old farm. Being certain once and for all that the bank wouldn’t seize it, keeping it in her family the way she was determined to. 

And maybe, just maybe, singing her songs into the recording studio microphone instead of into the night air.

**8:20**

The sun has just slipped away when the first firecracker goes off, squealing into the sky and expiring with the punch of gunshots. 

Gale winces.

A second firecracker, then another – _too much, too soon, too close,_ those are all of the emotions that Katniss sees in Gale’s scrunched-up face and pained eyes. A reminder that they’ve both had wars to fight and that some days, it feels like they’ll always be back in those places – Gale in the desert, she in the wing of the auditorium…

“Hey, hey.” Johanna, of all people, is the first to speak. “It’s just a bunch of punks looking for a cheap thrill.”

Gale’s jaw clenches and unclenches.

“Do you want to go, Gale?” Madge says a little too loudly, swaying on her feet. 

Wrong move – there’s nothing her best friend hates more than attention, especially when he’s vulnerable – but that’s Madge, sweet and well-meaning but not always super perceptive. 

But Johanna is still talking, and now her voice isn’t bold so that everyone around has no choice but to listen, but quieter, gentler. “Hey, it’s all right. You’re okay here. Want me to go beat their asses?”

Gale cracks a smile. 

It’s this turn of events that distracts her. The stage lights go dark and then flicker back on as a single guitar begins playing. In that moment, everything feels like too much – her best friend’s emotions, the surge of the crowd that makes her stumble, the sweat and the heat, still thickening although the sun’s gone down.

She closes her eyes and focuses on the guitar. It’s rich and driving, built for radio singles but also with the skill that carries albums and stories—

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!” Madge shouts. “I can’t believe he’s the replacement!”

She opens her eyes.

The guitarist leans up against the microphone stand, teasing the mic with both hands, smile wide and blinding that’s probably accounting for fifty percent of the cheers alone. 

No.

_No._

Not him.

**8:22**

“Fuck,” Johanna says. “Not him.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Gale says, but the bite in his voice has vanished. 

“The helping the maimed and infirm act?” Johanna has to shout because the crowd is yelling now, singing along. “So pandering. Gag me.”

Peeta Mellark’s rise to fame began when, as the opening act for Eric Church, he’d brought a little girl on stage with him and she sang along into his microphone. The video garnered thousands of hits on YouTube within hours, soon popping up on TV and newspaper websites. Now he’s fabled for bringing someone up at every performance – ladies in wheelchairs, children with lisps, young soldiers looking to propose to their girlfriends – and making a whole sideshow out of it. 

He’s the kind of guy who talks about his band in every interview, using “we” but not meaning it in the royal sense. Never mind that he’s the one on magazine covers, hair golden as flax, eyes cornflower blue, and that easy smile. 

He’s the guy who had to get his GED in lieu of graduating from Regional District 12 (that’s right, Panem born and raised) because he was already playing gigs in Nashville. 

He’s the kind of guy that makes her want to turn away from the stage and run. 

Because everything he has should have been hers.

…

They were the last two contestants sitting in the stage wing. She fiddled with the tuning pegs. His knee bounced up and down nervously. Onstage, Allison “Glimmer” Daniels belted out “Jesus, Take the Wheel” and the student body cheered its approval. Girl could hit a high note, that was for sure.

“Hey,” he said. One word.

She looked up into eyes that were as nervous as hers, and that was enough to stop her from turning the pegs too tightly. “Hey.”

“What are you singing?” He nodded toward her guitar. His hands were empty, clasped together on his bouncing knee.

“Um…” It sounded all right when she told Haymitch and his thick eyebrows rose in surprise. It sounded stupid here in the hallway of her high school. “I wrote my own song.”

“Wow.” Peeta’s eyes lit up and the bouncing stopped. “You’re gonna be the only one who does an original song. That’s amazing. How long have you been writing?”

As soon as she’d understood how to pluck the strings to make music. “A while,” she said, hoping she didn’t come across as arrogant. “Eight years or so, I guess. How about you?”

Peeta sighed comically and scooted his chair closer to hers. Funny – they’d never shared more than lunch period together, but it felt so easy sitting with him in the shadows of the stage lights. “If I don’t do ‘I Walk the Line,’ my mother will disown me.”

She grinned. “How will she know?”

“My brothers will tell her. They’re dicks like that. It’s incredibly cliché, but I’m hoping to put a kind of rock-ish twist on it – which I guess makes it even more cliché, when you think about it.”

“I’m sure it will be great,” she said, and was surprised to realize that she meant it. She wished this self-deprecating boy well.

That was, so long as she performed better. 

“What about you?” He was up next, but despite the applause following Glimmer’s performance, he made no move to stand. His eyes were focused on her, wide and curious. “Any siblings?”

“My little sister – hey, speak of the devil.”

Patent-leather shoes clacking against the tiles, breathing ragged.

“Little Duck, what’s wrong?” She rested her guitar against the chair, rising to meet her sister. 

Prim’s flushed cheeks were streaked with tears. 

“It’s Dad.”

…

“Miss Trinket,” she heard Peeta say behind her, “it’s not fair that I get to go on and she doesn’t—”

But the music teacher was firm. “Let’s go, Mr. Mellark.”

The show must go on, after all. 

**8:35**

_He can meet you when it ends, say midnight?_ The email from Haymitch blurs as a film of tears obscures her vision. Midnight. She’s stuck here for the next few hours, listening to Pretty Boy Mellark make that guitar sing. 

_Look out your window at the cloud of dust_  
 _That’s my headlights, that’s my truck._

Madge’s arm squeezes her shoulders. “This is even better than Cato and Cash,” she says. “Thank you for the tickets, Kat.”

“Welcome,” Katniss says woodenly, but the crowd’s too loud for Madge to notice. 

Peeta won Regional District 12 High School Idol with the majority vote, but the clincher was Seneca Crane, assistant to Plutarch Heavensbee, in the audience. It was, as the joke began, the last time Peeta stepped foot in Panem. 

Not entirely true; her guitar had shown up on her porch the next morning, tucked away in a crisp new case. But she hadn’t had the heart to tug it out since then. 

_Tick tock, now we’re knockin’ on midnight_  
 _Me and you, girl, we’re runnin’ outta moonlight._

Peeta Mellark sang about dirt roads. She threw dirt on her father’s grave. 

Where was the justice in that?

“You guys wanna come see Keith Urban in September?” Finnick has one hand on his beer and the other grazing the small of Madge’s back. 

“Yes,” Madge answers immediately, looking ready to float away.

“Sure, whatever.” Katniss scans her mental discography for any Keith Urban song that will drown out the sound of Peeta singing. 

“Jojo, what about you?” Finnick pivots. 

The girl’s been strangely quiet the past couple of songs, not making a comment when the guys behind them started shouting, “America!” Curious, Katniss leans around Finnick’s elbow—

Yes, those would be Johanna’s lips latched onto Gale’s. 

“Let’s go ahead and put them down as a yes,” she says dryly. 

**8:45**

Good for Gale. Not so helpful for her quest to find Heavensbee, especially when Gale’s eyes are half-lidded as he grins down at Johanna, going fact-for-fact in their debate about gun control. 

“Can I let y’all in on a secret?” Peeta says onstage. 

Resist. Resist—

She looks. Bad idea. Well-slung jeans and simple gray T-shirt that hugs his abs. Blond waves just barely subdued under a backwards baseball cap. He offers a little laugh, as if he’s actually bashful and doesn’t perform for a living, and the crowd goes crazy.

“He hasn’t even said anything,” Katniss says crossly. Idiots.

The whistles and cheers start to calm down when Peeta speaks again. “This was the first song I ever wrote for the first girl that captured my heart. And you know, you can sell thousands of albums, and you can tour all over the country, but you’ll always wonder…will she hear it? Will she know?” He laughs again, and this time the entire sea of people hinges on his next words. Finnick’s nodding along, his lips twisted in sadness. “Will she remember who I am? Because I know I won’t forget her.”

Pandemonium all around them. 

She’s back in the auditorium wing all over again, Peeta looking at her in awe when she tells him she wrote her own song—

“And I was wondering…” The big grin now, his famous one. “Maybe one of you wants to help me out tonight? Help me try to reach her?”

Of course. Making this heartfelt moment into a publicity stunt. 

Yet she’d been as sucked in as the rest of them.

Hands shoot up all around her. Beer sprays and asses jiggle as people jump up and down to volunteer.

“Finnick, put your hand down!” Johanna detaches herself from Gale to slap down Finnick’s arm. 

“What? I have an excellent baritone!” 

Peeta’s blue eyes scan the crowd. She will not look. She will not raise her hand and jump around foolishly. 

It’s some trick of acoustics or fate that when Madge screams out, “PICK HER!” Peeta Mellark turns his head and sees Katniss. Katniss, who stands there with arms flat at her side, fists balled. 

There’s no way he really sees her from here – too much of a light difference – but he’s grinning in her direction encouragingly. “Pick her?” He chuckles. “Sounds like someone’s a little shy, huh? Don’t worry, we’ll make you feel right at home, won’t we?”

The crowd around them parts automatically to let her pass, half of the girls seething.

None more than Katniss. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”

Madge all but shoves her. “Get up there, Kat! You’re gonna blow the roof off of this place!”

“There is no roof—” But the crowd rushes her along to the stage stairs. 

Six syllables carry her up those stairs: Heavensbee. Here. Somewhere. 

**8:47**

Is the stage wobbly, or is it her legs? She’d never performed at the high school Idol, after all, never even had the token bar gig. What does she know?

What would Haymitch say if he saw her now?

Eye contact. She swallows, remembering her instructor’s advice the night before the Idol finals: "Look around, engage them, act like they’re the person the song’s about." 

Camera flashes flicker like fireflies. How many people will crop her out of the photos? 

“YOU GO, GIRL!” Madge screams like a stage mom. It’s enough to make her smile, and the front row cheers with encouragement. 

Peeta’s hand is extended toward her, but he’s still mugging for the audience as the band begins to play. Up here, she can see the stubble on his jaw, the faint glow of sweat on his forehead. 

Publicity stunt indeed. He’s got the whole act down pat.

Well, maybe she can get something out of it, too. 

The bassist hands her a mic and she takes it between shaky hands. She knows these chords. She’s shut off the song enough times in her truck. But some nights, she was too tired to realize that she’d let the song play all the way through until the last note had faded. 

“ _Hey girl, you make me wanna write a song_ ,” Peeta begins, voice caressing the words, and it sounds a million times better up here next to him than it does through her shitty speakers. He nods to her. “ _Sit you down, I’ll sing it to you all night long_.”

She lifts the mic.

No turning back now.

“ _Had a melody in my head_ ,” she begins, and thank God her voice is stronger than her legs. It’s still there for her, even after the neglected years. “ _Since you walked in here, my mind went dead_.”

The crowd cheers in surprise and approval – “Hot damn, that girl can sing!” someone yells a few rows back. 

Peeta grins, striding toward her, but as they sing the next line together, his eyebrows crease.

Then his jaw drops.

Shit.

“Kat-Katniss?” he sputters. The act is gone. “Katniss Everdeen?”

“The one and only,” she replies in a voice that’s flirty and sassy and not at all like her. What the hell is this song doing to her?

What the hell is being near Peeta Mellark doing to her?

In an instant he’s closed the distance between them, wrapped her in a bone-crunching hug that’s sweaty and yet the perfect temperature. “Y’all, Katniss Everdeen and I go way back,” he says into the mic. “She knew me when I was nobody.”

_Knew me_ is a stretch, but she’s not going to blow his cover, not in front of thousands of people and quite possibly his manager, too. 

“I can’t believe this!” he says, and the surprise in his eyes is genuine. 

The drummer taps the cymbals – _get on with the show_ – and the band resumes. 

Her legs feel stronger now.

Their voices harmonize without any effort, gliding together. She hits notes she hasn’t attempted in years and he matches her, his eyebrows shooting up adorably. Everyone’s on their feet, clapping and screaming along. 

All of those songs she’s mocked for years, turned off in protest, judged Madge for liking—

She gets it now. The way that with the right chords and the right voice, a song can sweep you up and carry you on a current greater than yourself.

_Write your name on my heart, get you wrapped in my arms._

Haymitch was right about eye contact.

She can’t look away from Peeta.

And he’s not looking away from her. 

…

“Who thinks Ms. Everdeen should join our band?” Peeta calls into the mic once the song has ended, flashing a cheeky grin, and the roar of approval makes Katniss take a step back. 

They like her. Not just Peeta.

As the band launches into the next song, he lowers the mic. “Wait for me backstage,” he says, eyes earnest. “Promise?”

She nods, too numb to do anything else. To register what’s happened.

As she walks off of the stage, waving to the crowd, her heart’s still drumming. 

…

_I’M UPLOADING THE VIDEO RIGHT NOW OMG YOU’RE THE GREATESTTTTTT_ , Madge texts.

_Great job, Catnip. Your dad would be proud of you_ , Gale writes.

…

It’s a mini circus back here and everyone’s smiling at her. Victorious, that shitty rap-country mash-up group, asks if they can take a picture with her. Leevy Johnson skips over to tell her that the food table is right over here, and there are brownies. Thresh Walker, the second act, pumps her hand and says, “That was really something, Ms. Everdeen.”

It’s downright disconcerting – why are they all so nice instead of treating her like the impostor she is?

**10:10**

She’s found an overturned box to sit on and listened to the two encores (as well as the inevitable cover of “Friends in Low Places”). Somehow, over the screams from the crowd, she hears her phone ping. Email.

From Haymitch: _What the hell is this video?_

Oh, no.

Haymitch can barely figure out more than “reply,” “send,” and “forward” (bcc is a whole other world). For him to have traveled into the depths of the Internet and found the video? And sent it to her? He must think she sounds like crap. 

How could she think that the crowd was cheering for her? It’s the Peeta Mellark Show tonight in Panem. It was the day he won Idol, and it’s overwhelmingly so now. 

“Plutarch Heavensbee is your celebrity crush? Really?”

She nearly drops the phone. Peeta stands directly over her, breathing heavily and smiling. 

He takes a seat on the box next to her, his jeans pressed against her bare leg. “Are you hungry? There’s a food table. Do you need a drink?”

“You’re the one who was singing for ninety minutes,” she says, tucking her phone away safely into her shorts. 

He shrugs, shoulder brushing against hers. “You get used to it after awhile. Listen, Katniss, it was—”

“Excuse me, Ms. Everdeen?” Peeta’s drummer extends a tattooed arm. “Caesar Flickerman. You were just on fire out there. Unbelievable.” They shake hands. “So you know this sad sack from high school, huh? What’d you think about that song?”

“It was great,” she says sincerely. “It’s one of the few country songs I can tolerate.”

Caesar’s giving Peeta a significant look, which Peeta seems dead-set on ignoring. “So anyways,” Peeta continues, “I wanted to—”

His phone starts playing “Long Hot Summer.”

“Better pick that up,” Caesar says. “Probably the old ball and chain.”

Peeta looks at the phone and rolls his eyes. “I’m so sorry. I gotta take this. One second, okay?”

“Called it!” Caesar crows.

_Ball and chain_. Who wouldn’t want to keep Peeta Mellark all to themselves? 

Peeta strides off, smoothly navigating around the stage crew, and she wonders if this is her cue to slip back into the crowd and pretend this never happened. With his back to her, Peeta clears his throat. “Hey, Plutarch.”

Plutarch. Midnight. 

_He's_ the ball and chain. 

“No, I didn’t plan this.” He exhales. “I…No. That’s not gonna go over well. Look, can we talk about this in the morning?”

Did the stunt on stage ruin her fledgling career?

Has it hurt Peeta’s?

Running into the night has never seemed more appealing. She can bribe Madge to take down that video, wave off the comments customers make at the diner, and let the whole ordeal blow over by Wednesday. By then, the football team will begin preseason workouts, or someone will get pregnant out of wedlock, and there will be bigger stories than Katniss Everdeen. 

There have always been bigger stories than her, after all. 

Peeta laughs – full and rich. Her shoulders relax incrementally. 

_Need a rescue?_ Madge texts her.

_I got this_ , she replies automatically, although that’s debatable. Might have just ruined her one shot in front of Plutarch Heavensbee – no big deal. 

“Yes,” Peeta continues. “Wait, hold on, you’re breaking up. Hello?”

She stands up, knees creaking. _Nice to see you again, Peeta, but I’ve overstayed my welcome._

That’s when the man with salt and pepper hair, a plaid shirt, and jeans leaps over microphone wires and a stack of folding chairs and starts running.

To her.

“Plutarch?” Peeta says into the phone. “You’re – wait, you’re right there—”

Plutarch Heavensbee doesn’t turn at the sound of his name. Instead, he pumps Katniss’s hand and says, “Haymitch’s girl. Abernathy was right about you.”

**10:15**

Her tongue feels too cumbersome, too slow to keep up with her racing mind. “Nice to meet you,” she manages. Peeta’s at her side now but this nondescript man holds all of the energy in the place.

“It’s a terrific story,” Plutarch’s saying now. “Peeta pines for his girl back home, picks her at random at the show he wasn’t scheduled to play, turns out it’s the same girl. They sing a duet that makes people cry in the crowd – you seriously can’t script this kind of thing.”

Sounds like one of the romance novels Madge reads while she’s drinking coffee at the diner and waiting for Katniss to finish her shift. She sneaks a smile at Peeta – _is this guy for real?_ – but Peeta stares down at his jeans. 

Is he blushing?

No way. He must still be flushed from performing.

“It works on so many levels,” Plutarch continues in earnest, reminding Katniss of the Intro to Poetry class she took at Panem County Community College. “Peeta, I know we’ve discussed how to bring your career to the next level. This is it.”

Katniss blinks.

This. 

Her.

“What are you suggesting?” Peeta says calmly, but his jaw twitches. 

“I am suggesting—” Plutarch presses his palms together like a prayer as he gestures between them “—that this could be the next Lady Antebellum.”

It takes a moment to register—

She and Peeta. Together.

Peeta’s shaking his head. It’s obvious – he doesn’t want an amateur encroaching on his territory.

“Everyone loves Peeta.” Katniss forces herself to focus on Plutarch, ignoring the sting. “You heard the crowd – they go nuts when he breathes.”

“Katniss doesn’t need me,” Peeta tells Plutarch. “She’s talented, gorgeous, plays guitar, writes her own music—”

Gorgeous. She couldn’t have heard him right. Generous? Maybe that was it?

“Voices that blend like yours? That’s what sells out stadiums,” Plutarch says firmly. “Those are the Christmas albums people play for their kids and grandkids. The story is what will launch you two, but the voices are what will give you staying power.”

“What story?” Katniss blurts out. The fictional love that Plutarch’s concocted from thin air? They’re two kids from the same podunk high school. That’s all. 

“This is what I see here, kids.” Plutarch has the tone of voice that he probably uses in Nashville recording studio board rooms. “I see natural harmonizing and incredible onstage chemistry. More than that, I see a golden opportunity.”

This is what Haymitch and her father wanted for her. Hell, it’s what she’s wanted for herself.

But not as Peeta’s tag-along, singing at a few tour stops until the act grows old. 

“Ms. Everdeen, my card.” A cool slip of paper presses into her palm. “I look forward to hearing from you once you’ve considered my offer. We leave town at dawn.”

**10:30**

For the first time since they were sixteen, they are alone.

Peeta’s shaking his head. “I’m so sorry to drag you into this. Plutarch gets carried away and it’s impossible to say no to him. He’s got great instincts, I’ll give him that, but he forgets that we’re people and like to exercise independent will sometimes.”

She buries the business card deep into her pocket. It fits nicely with her dreams. “Yeah. Thanks. Look, sorry I made this night into a big hassle for you.”

His fingers brush against her shoulder, but she refuses to lean in closer. There’s no audience to cheer them on, no Plutarch to create storylines that aren’t there. “Katniss—”

“Don’t, Peeta. I’m not a charity case, okay?” She forces the words to hold some weight. Some semblance of truth. “My life’s fine. I don’t need your fancy manager to force me into your band. You’ll keep touring, you’ll get some other girl up on stage, and Plutarch will forget about the whole thing.”

His eyes widen, hurt. Too late. 

**10:32**

It starts as a brisk walk, but soon she’s running through the labyrinth of the backstage, elbowing her way past the stage crew and down a flight of stairs. The pavement slaps against her sandals as she navigates between the tour buses. She is a moving target under a sky illuminated by fireworks, whizzing north faster and faster. 

Until she slams into him.

“How did you do that?” she yells.

He grips her by the shoulders, though she doesn’t need steadying. “I know my way around here. I walked outside before my set. I find it meditative.”

Of course. 

“I’m sorry,” she says again. “Madge Undersee was the one who volunteered me. I didn’t mean to start any of this.”

His palms, callused and strong, cup her cheeks. “You don’t get it.”

“Peeta—”

His lips find hers, fast and sure and so sweet that her mind is stunned into silence. 

She can’t pull away.

Why would she pull away? 

“Katniss,” he breathes when they finally break apart, “I wrote that song for you.”

**10:35**

The blazes of the firecrackers rain down, like lightning petering out. 

“How?” she says. “You don’t know me.”

“I know,” he says, taking a tentative step forward. 

“So the songs are…real?” It’s too much to wrap her head around. It brings her back to the moment before the competition, and how she wakes up some nights wondering if she’ll ever get out of that hallway. 

He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and she can’t help it – she shivers. His face glows under the gold and blue and red from the sky. “Yes. And no.”

She quirks her eyebrows and he laughs softly, breath warm against her. “They’re songs about the girl I met when I was sixteen and spoke to way too briefly. I had to fill in the blanks myself. But now that you’re here…well, maybe you can fill in those blanks for me.”

**10:41**

_What’s going on back there? Everything okay?_ Madge texts her. _Gale’s not loving the fireworks so we’re rolling out – where should we meet you?_

_Um…would you mind hitching a ride home with Gale?_

_EVERDEEN, YOU OWE ME STORIES. And earplugs. Johanna’s coming with us, too._

**11:45**

Roman candles cascade in the sky and she thinks about Gale, who texted her half an hour ago – _Keep your head above water, Catnip. If I need to punch a guy, let me know._ She suspects that Johanna just might be able to keep him steady. If not, there’s Madge and maybe even Finnick now, too. 

“You know, I’ve never done this before,” Peeta says from next to her.

“Done what? Ran off with a fan?” she teases. What is it about Peeta Mellark that makes it so easy to joke with him, sing in front of thousands of people, lie here together mere inches apart?

“No.” He rolls onto his side so that his eyes align with hers. “Laid out and watched the stars from the back of a pick-up truck.”

Her laughter echoes against the metal of the truck bed. “Isn’t that what ‘Runnin’ Outta Moonlight’ is all about?”

His face scrunches up adorably like a child who’s been caught coloring on the walls. “Shh.”

“Peeta Mellark, you are a disappointment to modern country music. I’m going to tell Plutarch on you.”

“What can I say?” His fingers thread through her long dark hair, slowly but surely unraveling her braid. “I draw my inspiration from other sources.”

The fuzzy blanket’s too thin to keep the metal from digging into her back. But it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts right now, besides maybe the hammering of her pulse. 

“Speaking of Plutarch, what are you going to do?” Peeta says.

She turns her eyes skyward to the fireworks. “I’d be an idiot not to call him. But I don’t want to skirt by on your coattails, know what I mean? I want him to want me on my own merit.”

Peeta props himself up on his elbow to look at her. “Your merit is more than enough. He doesn’t say that kind of stuff lightly. Look at Cato and Cash. He found them at two different open mic nights in Atlanta and paired them together. Now they’re killing it.”

“I refuse to sing about cowboy boots and low-cut jeans,” she says. “Or to hijack your solo career.”

Peeta sighs. “Plutarch keeps saying he wants me to go in a new direction, but every time I come up with an idea, he tells me I’m fine just the way I am. Mixed signals much? But I think he might be right. Singing with you – that’s the best I’ve ever felt.”

_Me, too._

“I’m being selfish, though. You need to make the right choice for you, and if you want to be a solo artist, you’re more than capable." He pauses. "But don’t get me wrong – I would love to sing with you again. In fact, it’s pretty much the number one thing on my bucket list right now.”

“What’s number two?” she can’t resist asking.

He grins. “Getting the blueberry pie at Sae’s Diner before we roll out of here tomorrow.” 

“Play your cards right and you might just get the employee discount.”

He catches her hand and threads his fingers through hers. “Does that mean we have a date?”

“Looks like it.” There’s a lump under her hip and edges poking into her skin. Plutarch’s business card. 

She imagines what Haymitch’s response will be when she tells him about this night, if he hasn’t already heard from Plutarch. She can picture his eyes rolling: "Are you kidding me, sweetheart? Put down your pride, pick up the damn phone, and see what the man has to say for himself." 

She almost doesn’t hear Peeta humming under his breath.

_Let me take you on a night ride,_  
 _Windows down, sittin’ on my side_  
 _Tick tock, we’re knockin’ on midnight…_

“Are you really singing one of your own songs right now?” she says with a grin. “Isn’t that too meta?”

“Just biding my time until you sing me one of yours,” he says, and leans in.

**Author's Note:**

> Song credits:
> 
> "It Goes Like This" - Thomas Rhett
> 
> "Runnin' Outta Moonlight" - Randy Houser 
> 
> Peeta singing with a little girl onstage is based off of an (adorable) video of Luke Bryan doing the same at one of his concerts. 
> 
> Come say hi on Tumblr! I'm girl-aflame (hyphen, not underscore) over there. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! :)


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